


Pain By Any Other Name

by gentlearmor



Series: #hurtnoctweek stories [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Actual Character Death, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous life/death statuses, Anthology, Character Death, Child Abuse, Gen, Graphic Description of Injuries, Hurt Noct Week, Limited Perspectives, Major character death - Freeform, NPCs - Freeform, No Beta, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, heed them archive tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-07 12:54:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16408898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlearmor/pseuds/gentlearmor
Summary: Noctis has bad luck, no matter his age or incarnation, it seems.





	1. Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> None of the stories in this will be connected in a chronology, but will have an ongoing theme because I'm lame and can't do anything unless it ties together somehow, so I'm creating a holiday for Insomnia/Lucis in honor of the #hurtnoctweek challenge, and also Halloween. It will be a background detail in most cases, and each challenge will be a different day in the seven day event, but that is the only thing that will be common for these stories.
> 
> Some might feel incomplete, or more like a drabble. I'm actually really bad at making isolated one-shots, so I figure this: If one catches your attention and you might want to see more, feel free to let me know!
> 
> Anyway, let's get to this specific entry's warnings:
> 
> I combo'ed two parts of the Day One challenge, which was abuse and Noctis finding out the truth about his destiny/fate when he's super young. Thus:
> 
> PART ONE WARNING: Child abuse (brief but right there and obvious).

The Festival of Etro.

A seven day holiday that involved themes of darkness and death, in honor of Insomnia’s beloved patron goddess, long gone but never forgotten.

On the first day, it was all about traditional clothing and painted masks that ran thinly over the eyes. For ten year old Noctis, that meant a heavy, leather coat, complete with a raised collar that passed over his jawline, and sweeping coattails that draped over ironically light, but puffed pants that were cut to accommodate boots.

He understood that the design was both armored and light, made for a physical combatant, of which the Heir Apparent of Lucis was destined. However, he was _ten_ and he didn’t like it.

At least it looked kind of cool with the black band painted across his eyes, temple to temple, which made his steel blue eyes stand out all the more. That part made him feel like some sort of vigilante from the comics he liked to read, so that was cool.

When he arrived to the Day One Masquerade that night, he directed himself for Gladiolus Amicitia and Ignis Scientia, who were quietly talking by another entrance to the dining hall, looking into the crowds.

“You two look pissed,” Noctis Lucis Caelum said as he moved in on his advisor and his trainer.

“Noct,” twelve year old Ignis scolded. “Mind your tongue.”

“And we’re not pissed,” thirteen year old Gladio advised, not minding the cursing. His mind looked elsewhere, just as his gaze was.

“Then what is it?” Noctis was sure relieved that he and Gladio weren’t enemies any longer. While it’d only been a week since Gladio had the epiphany that Noctis actually wasn’t a hellspawn from the loin of Ifrit, the change had been immediate.

“What, didn’t the king tell you?” Gladio asked, making a face as he finally looked at Noctis.

“Huh? Tell me what?”

Ignis looked at Gladio in concern, and then looked to Noctis. “The Empire has sent representatives for the Festival of Etro, and to broker a deal with His Majesty for peace.”

Now, being just ten, Noctis didn’t know all the ins and outs about Lucis’s fight with the Empire. However, he was arguably more educated on it than even Ignis. Whether he retained all that education like Ignis remained to be seen, but it meant that he had a good reason to feel a real sense of dread watch over him as he stared at the two shell-shocked.

“I told you,” Gladio snapped under his breath to Ignis.

“…so you did.” The two boys, so mature for their ages, looked from one another, back to the speechless Noctis. “We’d been suspecting this isn’t just ‘a visit to broker peace’, and your reaction…”

Noctis didn’t wait to hear out the rest of what Ignis had to say, turning on his heel and running from the dining hall. He ignored their protests, such as their saying he wasn’t supposed to leave the dining hall after entering, not until midnight. He didn’t care about traditions, though. If members of the Empire were standing in the Citadel as guests, that meant Insomnia had already fallen. They just hadn’t actually gotten so far as to be caught by the public.

He needed to get out. He needed to think. The world just got so much smaller, yet blacker. He needed to escape.

He’d go to his room, change, and sneak out through the gardens on the ground floor. How were they—

“Oh, do let me get that for you, Prince Noctis,” a man’s voice said as the elevator doors slid open. A long arm hooked against the doors on one side. Noctis gazed up at the owner of the hand, and wasn’t sure what to think.

A red headed man stared back down at him, his own painted band red and white, like the flag of Niflheim. He wore a sly smile and nodded to the elevator. “Your Highness boards first,” he urged.

Noctis didn’t move for several seconds, his feet as locked to the ground as his young eyes were locked to the man’s hollow smile and empty eyes. When he did move, it wasn’t of his volition, but rather from the man’s free hand slamming into his back, right against his spine, and causing him to stumble forward and trip, falling right into the elevator floor.

His back was still sore, even two years later. It was a weakness he and Gladio worked to overcome daily. With the blink of an eye, it was as though everything in his body went back two years, and by the time he regained his senses from where he hit the elevator car’s floor and slid towards the back wall, he couldn’t manage to move his legs without excruciating pain. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t even breathe right without agonizing shocks radiating through his shoulder blades, and uniting in his neck, in his brain stem.

All he could do was crane his head slightly to see the massive man as best he could.

“ _Good boy_ ,” praised the red headed man. He stepped onto the elevator and punched a button to close the car.

Noctis didn’t even see the wicked smile he passed to Cor Leonis, who had been following him, and only just caught sight of who was on the elevator with him before the doors closed.

“Lucii don’t cry,” continued the man. “I would especially think the Chosen King would know not to cry.”

Noctis had come to hate that term. It reminded him of Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, and her lessons of who he was, and who she was. He liked those lessons. He liked Luna. It was the first time since Ignis that Noctis felt he had a friend, and he couldn’t even talk to her outside of secret writings back and forth.

The elevator had just started to rise when it jolted to a stop. “Oh, it looks like your Marshal is a defiant one,” the man said coolly as he looked at the dimmed lights of the elevator. “I’m sure he’ll simply say he’d seen you fall, and stopped the elevator to help me help you. The diplomat’s way of ceasing this interaction. I suppose that means we have to work fast.”

The man dropped to a knee so he was more act Noctis’s level, but even still, he loomed over the little boy like a titan. His closeness felt like an additional weight on the prince’s back, even though he’d yet to touch him again.

Noctis soon learned that sensation was nothing compared to the feeling of the man’s touch, when his jaw was grasped with an unmerciful strength that felt like it could break the bone with a simple twist of his fingers.

“O’ Chosen King, do you know the path you truly tread? Walk as you do, to bring the light back to our Star, so too do you walk a path to death.”

Noctis couldn’t respond. Even if he could have moved his jaw, even if he could breathe, he had no idea what to say. Death wasn’t a concept foreign to him, but unlike what felt like the rest of Insomnia, it wasn’t one he wanted to celebrate. Ignis and Gladio had to force him out of bed to meet with the tailor and the makeup artist that day (the latter because he outright refused to do it himself, or allow either elder boy to do it for him, and his father was too busy).

He’d seen death.

He’d seen Etro.

He didn’t want see it, or her, again for a very long time.

“First, the death of the King. Then the death of the Oracle. After a great slumber, the Chosen King will ascend the throne and shed light from within him. This is the only way.”

“I don’t—understand,” heaved the child, his voice squeaking painfully in his ears.

“I think you do,” the man with red hair said, a delightfully snide smile on his face. He leaned in and moved his mouth to the boy’s ear. “Two kings will die for the throne. Blood will run across its seat and down its stairs. Why do you think your father cried when he learnt that you were the one, boy?”

He roughly released Noctis’s jaw, in a way that shoved the child onto his back as he himself stood tall.

Noctis didn’t move, staring up the elevator’s lights as he blinked rapidly to control his emotions. It was quite the battle for a child of his age, but he’d learned how to save his emotions for himself.

It left him unawares of time itself, and he barely released the elevator was soon lowering to the ground floor. He barely noticed as the doors opened to Cor and about ten other Crownsguard.

He barely heard the man with red hair say to them, “Oh, I’m so glad you came to our rescue!” as he pushed through them shamelessly. “It seems Prince Noctis has fallen ill.” He stopped beside Cor, smiling as he leaned in to him. “You better get him care. He _is_ the most important person in this world, after all.”

Noctis closed his eyes, because that last sentence did come though clearly, and it felt as though the already crumbling floor under him gave way, sinking his young mind into a whirlwind of darkness.

He was born to die.

He defied that very thing two years prior, only because it wasn’t the right way.

Betrayed. He felt betrayed. Why had no one told him? Why did the enemy have to tell him? He knew it was a member of the Empire that had accosted him, even if there was no formal introduction to be had. The colors of his face paint, and the sheer weight of evil emanating off of him, screamed of the enemy.

“Your Highness,” Cor said once freed of the man’s menacing presence. He moved in and took to resting on his knees beside the child. “They’re sending for royal medics right now, but please try to speak to me.”

Noctis said nothing. He did nothing. He didn’t even focus on Cor more than the bare minimum.

He was in pain, and he wanted to break down. He wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out.

He’d seen death.

He’d seen Etro.

No one deserved to see either.


	2. Depths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All this boy wanted was fries and to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Two of Hurt Noct Week (belated because I suck):
> 
> Prompts used: Concussion and cracked ribs/punctured lung. (I know I don't have to use multiple, but!)
> 
> Warnings: Graphic descriptions of injuries, ambiguous outcome.
> 
> As stated in the prior chapter, these are grouped into one story archive by chapters due to the running themes of the holiday I'm pulling out of my ass, and the #hurtnoctweek challenge, but they have no other connections to one another and might be AU, canon, or whatever. If I decide to write one that connects to another, I'll let you know!
> 
> I'm so behind lmao

When it came to the Festival of Etro, day two through four seemed like the most useless days. If they were cut out of existence, Noctis Lucis Caelum would have been happy. The whole damn week was just awful, if one asked the spirited 16-year-old. Although school as out in celebration of it—which was awesome—it meant that he had to go to the Citadel every. damn. night.

Every night, and then he’d have to get yanked in five hundred directions by tailors and artists to prepare him, until Ignis Scientia found him and scolded everyone in the room on his behalf. “One at a time, for God’s sake,” Ignis would bark. It was always kind of funny with Ignis started telling off their elders. His voice had leveled at a firm and respectable octave, and he managed to carry his words with respect and anger in a balance that Noctis found hilarious. Gladiolus Amicitia called it Ignis’s ‘mommy voice’, which tended to make Noctis actually laugh out loud. Ignis would get indignant, but seemed to accept it as a trade off for the prince’s enjoyment on display.

While the first day of the the Festival of Etro was about tradition and the past, day two was about the present, about those around you. Friends and family, all who raced towards Her gates together on an uneven playing field. As far as the clothing one wore, it was simply expected to be black and comfortable, and preferably with silver patterning over somewhere on each person. As for masks, that day still warranted makeup as the first. However, instead of a painted line going from temple to temple, narrow and representing the colors of one’s homeland (or favorite color if someone wanted to be a dick about it, which Noctis supported since it was funny), the same band was drawn and then elaborated out over the face in elegant lines and patterns of one’s choosing.

Unless one was Noctis, in which case it was part of the patterns that made up the family crest. He begged for it to be as light and inconspicuous as possible, and yet again, Ignis had to don the ‘mommy voice’ in order to get the makeup artist to listen. So spiraling wisps were drawn out across his forehead, turning inward, as well as under his eyes, giving him a somewhat skeletal look, if he was from some awful B movie about alien skeletons.

Either way, the day two gala went on without a hitch. It was a thank you to Etro for allowing his father to continue to shield Insomnia, and a night to pray that She would be kind to those who perish in an untimely way, from Lucis to Tenebrae. And in between the gratitude and the prayers, they had to socialize and mingle, and all the things Noctis hated. Eventually, Gladiolus and Ignis found him a way to get free.

“Don’t you have a big project due first day back to school?” Gladio had asked, coming up during a rather uncomfortable conversation featuring a member of the court’s daughter coming on to Noctis way too hard.

“Perhaps you should take these less chaotic days, before the fifth day celebrations begin, to complete it, hm?” Ignis added. “Come, I’ll walk you out.”

And, because his friends were awesome, Gladio sidled in to start wooing the girl, who was a year older than Noctis, and so she had no problem switching her attention to the son of the King’s Shield (and the son of the King’s Shield was way more interested in her than the Prince Regent was).

That brought Noctis to the present. While he could have just stayed at the Citadel as opposed to making late night drives to his apartment each night, he really didn’t want to stay there any longer than necessary. It meant he was going to get home that night at just shy of two in the morning, but it was fine. It meant he had a good excuse to sleep in, which was always awesome.

It was about halfway home, however, that he found himself getting a little hungry. Despite the voice of Ignis in his head telling him to wait and leftovers from the lunch they had together before departing for the Citadel, he decided to pull off the freeway for some food. There were some great fast food places that would allow for requests to leave or add whatever one might’ve wanted, so it allowed him to get what he wanted without having to dump a bunch of vegetables.

Pulling through a drive-thru to get just some finger food, fries or something, Noctis pulled his car to the correct window after paying, to wait for his food. “It’ll be a few minutes,” the attendant told him, so he stopped with his pedal brake, but didn’t put his car in park. Anyone who got a good look at his car would know that something was different about him. It was a primary lesson from Cor when he started driving lessons.

“I want the record to show I asked Regis to get you a more understated vehicle for your sixteenth. But since you’ve got this, we’re going to talk about precautions that I want you to take,” Cor said from the passenger seat. “First, unless you intend to get out of the car, you keep it on and keep it out of park. Exceptions are if it’s an emergency, but I expect you to use common sense with that.”

“Right.”

“Keep your windows rolled up at all times, unless you’re driving or actively utilizing it to talk to someone. Even then, halfway down unless you absolutely need to, got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

For as passive as he was with those lessons, and the consequent brow beatings his lack of enthusiasm surely caused via Cor asking Gladio and Ignis to help drive it home, Noctis did as he was told. There were more than a few occasions that he was glad for it, too.

He was reminded of how glad he was when he was waiting and noticed a few shady characters in the parking lot, looking over his ride and trying to see who was driving it. He had protective tinting, but at night, and with the light from the drive-thru window pouring in, he imagined that the black clad men, faces painted as everyone else that day, could at least see his form. Maybe more. Like a one-way mirror, it only worked if one side was darker than the other.

The men continued to linger around their black jeep, watching and talking loud enough that he could hear the noise, but not make out the words, even as his fries were brought to him. He thanked the attendant within and rolled up his window, pulling the container to plop it in his cup holder.

As he pulled out the drive-thru, he noticed the men getting into their car and immediately starting it up, which he considered with a fair amount of interest. Despite his attitudes about personal safety, he was hyper-aware of his surroundings.

So much to the point that when it became obvious, through several erratic turns in a roundabout way to return to the highway, that they were apparently following him, he went to dial Cor on his car’s phone system.

After several rings, Cor answered with a drowsy, “Highness.” Cor was about the only person allowed to skip festivities, given his station, so it wasn’t surprising that he had been sleeping.

“I’m being followed,” Noctis advised. “I’m going up to the highway right now. Four guys in a black SUV… jeep thing.”

“Are you certain?” Cor was sounding a lot more awake at that point.

“Yeah, I’m—”

The next thing Noctis experienced was a flurry of chaos and the sound of metal slamming and grinding against concrete.

He was just about to enter the on-ramp for the highway, when the vehicle behind him sped up and slammed into the back of his car, and another barreled out of nowhere and slammed into the passenger side of his car. The sheer size and tonnage was enough to send his car careening out diagonally from where they cornered his car in.

While the construction of the car was solid, as to be expected of a royal vehicle, Noctis had never been one for seat belts. He was realizing that was a bad idea when his car slammed into a divider that started the ramp and flipped over it, dropping not onto the ground on the other side, but rather falling through an opening to a lower level of the city. He hadn’t realized that the highway was raised that high from the base level of the city by three levels, two of which Noctis knew about. He learned it though, when his car landed on the hood, and he—after getting thrown about the front of the car, came to a rest on the roof.

“Noctis!” he distantly heard Cor shout over the still-functional speakers of the car.

He tried to respond, but all that came out was a jumbled mess of words that he himself couldn’t understand. They were slurred, and wet, and when he started to run a hand over his body to check for wounds, he understood why. Somewhere along the way, his forehead slammed into something—the dashboard? the wheel?—and was bleeding profusely, blood stinging at his right eye the longer he stayed there.

“What? Highness, I can’t understand you,” Cor emphasized, out of breath as he was clearly running.

“Head,” he managed. That useless notification confused Cor, but he ignored questions as he traveled his hand over his body. Arms were okay, legs were okay. He could feel his legs, and move his toes. Good, but why did he feel like he was drowning?

A test of his chest gave him the answer of about three ribs, broken and protruding from his flesh. If they’d punctured his skin, they probably punctured his lung. “Lung,” he heaved.

“Is your head and your lung injured?” Cor tried to translate between shouting to mobilize his guards, and any glaives in the area.

“Yes.” He noticed, in his broken side view mirror that had fallen inward, that those cars were driving up for him. Or so he assumed. Their dark silhouettes were large enough, and he’d spent enough time studying the headlights of the one to identify them, even as his vision blurred. He reached up to the flickering screen on his console and clumsy activated his tracking signal. Even though he was supposed to have it on at all times, like the shitty, moody, hormonal sixteen year old brat he was, he never had it on unless someone forced it on remotely. “Track,” he directed weakly.

Cor was responding then, but Noctis ignored him in favor of trying to figure out what to do. First, he summoned a potion to crack over himself. There was no way it would heal his injuries, but it would slow the bleeding and heal more superficial wounds. Not to mention the cooling relief it brought, so he could try to stave off shock once his adrenaline started to crash.

Thank any god he could think of that he actually paid attention to those sorts of lessons from Gladio.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t training with real swords just yet. He was due to start following the Festival of Etro. While Regis had wanted him to take more time with practice swords, Gladio and his father both convinced him that Noctis would do well to start on steel. He’d already learned magic and was extremely astute in it, they’d said. Noctis wasn’t sure about that, but he rolled with it, and thinking about it had him brainstorming.

He summoned one of his flasks, unsure what the actual cast would be and not able to focus on fine details enough to even see the glow of the small items.

The cars started to pull to a stop on the side where his feet were pointed, which gave him time to slap the window controls and allow it to roll down.

Or up, if one wanted to be technical.

He was really grateful that his car was built by the same people that built the Regalia. It wasn’t the Regalia, and lacked in some ways, but it did its job.

Pulling out of the window was the worst thing he’d done yet. Although the potion and adrenaline were working well together, the bones poking from his flesh were rubbing against his shirt and when he moved his arm wrong, and without care, it hit them and sent a painful shock through his entire body. Enough of one that his eyes blurred and turned glassy with tears that brimmed from both pain and, honestly, fear.

What a time to almost be murdered for the second time: the celebration of death.

If he could hold out, he suspected the Crownsguard could be there in… ten? maybe fifteen? Cor knew how to pull strings and get streets closed if necessary. He just needed to survive.

One of the men shouted something to him, but the sound of his heart thumping in his ears drowned out the words. Did it matter, though? It was likely either a threat, or a demand to not fight, and like hell he would listen to either.

If he didn’t take his father’s threats seriously, he was sure as hell not going to take the threats of some assholes seriously, out to hurt him or not.

Gasping for what little air he could get or not.

If only those damn ribs hadn’t jutted outward, he would have been able to suck it up enough to shove his tie into the wound or something. As it was, he couldn’t do a damn thing, and he was starting to taste iron every time he let out a breath of air. His chest was probably whistling from air entering the wound, and gurgling grotesquely when he inhaled, bubbling blood out and onto his clothes.

With everything he had, he rolled onto his side and thrust his hand out towards the men, flask in hand and casting a generic spell to sail over the car and towards them. An eruption of lightning broke out, and the deafened sounds of men screaming thumped against the rhythm of his heart in his eardrums.

One of the men stumbled around the car, somehow narrowly missing the micro-lightning storm Noctis created, a lance in his hand. Something about seeing him wield a lance made the prince hesitate in attacking again. In his delirium, he overlaid the image of the painted-faced man with Ignis, and he tried to call at him in the off-chance it was, in fact, his steward and friend.

The pitiful attempt came out as nothing but a gurgled mess as more blood entered his mouth from his punctured lung, that time pooling and overflowing to the street under him. It was just as well, because the man with the lance charged him, and his confusion cleared awfully fast as the strange man swept in, clearly with the intent to shove that lance into his body.

Noctis raised his hand, attempting to throw out another thunder spell, but his mind was swirling and he felt like he was forgetting what he was doing, no doubt from the injury to his head.

It was just as well, because just before that lance connected with him, a shield slammed down between them, taking the full force of the blow. Noctis looked up, and saw Gladio standing above him, arching enough to cover him. His future Shield, to be coronated officially once Noctis turned eighteen, stepped over him like the giant he was, in order to force the man back and take him on.

A set of hands grabbed onto Noctis, pulling on his coat and trying to tear it off. Noctis was also ready to fight that, but stopped when he saw the real Ignis there.

The relief of knowing they were there was the second that his adrenaline crashed on him. “…how…” he managed to pant, to gurgle, and that time he heard how weak his voice was. His heart was slowing as his fight-or-flight mode shut off, and even though there was a thunderous rumble emanating from the wound on his head, trickling down through his skull, he could hear the world.

“We were on our way to the store for provisions for the morning,” Ignis explained quickly as he exposed the hideous puncture in Noctis’s side. “The call came in—we were the closest.” As always, Ignis was composed and mature, but there was a flash of true horror and worry in his eyes as he tried to figure out what to do.

“…need to sleep…” Noctis advised Ignis.

“No! No, Noct, stay awake,” Ignis said, his voice fringing on pleading. As one hand fumbled his phone free, he began to pat at Noctis’s face to keep him conscious. “You’ve likely a concussion, and you mustn’t sleep until you’ve been looked at.”

Noctis tried to reply, but what his argument came out as was a pained wheeze and bubbling red liquid that got onto Ignis’s hand, much to the older teen’s horror. It was then that a gurgle escaped Noctis in what could be best described as a ghost of a laugh. “…what a way to go.”

“Don’t talk like that, Noct, _please—_ ”

Noctis wanted to apologize. Apologize for being stupid, for being mean for so many years, for the fact that he felt like his heart was being pressed against, like someone was standing on it, waiting for it to burst.

For being scared.

He reached up for Ignis, or so he thought, his mind imagining his hand up to grab at his sleeve, as he’d done so many times before in the past when he needed an anchor. Ignis was his longest standing friend, and whenever he needed to be pulled out of a bad place, Ignis was there.

And Ignis was there again, but out of reach.

It made the world darkening in the prince’s eyes a lot more frightening.

It made it emptier.

Was he going to die?


	3. Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Empire seized control of Lucis, and Insomnia, long before Noctis and his people stood a real chance to defeat them in any way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts from the #hurtnoctweek challenge: The Nifs experiment on the Crystal and hurt our boi
> 
> It started that way, but then it turned into something different. But since the prompt was still the inspiration, here it is.
> 
> Despite how it sounds, it's not tied to the first day.
> 
> TW: Mentions of child abuse, character death... graphic character death...

“There we are. All done up and pretty for our third day celebrating the wonderful Etro~”

“…”

“Oh? Have you nothing to say?”

“…”

“Tch. Here, we pulled out all the tops, and you can’t even be appreciative.”

“I’m unsure what you expect from him. He hasn’t uttered a word in eight years.” The defense came from Ignis Scientia, who was standing at the entrance to the bedroom of the once-Crown Prince of Lucis, who was seated with a pinstripe black suit, not unlike what his father used to wear, with the full skull of his family crest painted over his face. On the third day of Etro, one ‘wore the marks of the past’ with pride, meaning painting one’s face in some complete fashion to display one’s family crest.

Given how hollow Noctis’s eyes were, the black and gold designs that made up the Lucii skull seemed fitting.

“Ah, I forgot,” the Chancellor of the all-encompassing Niflheim Empire, Ardyn Izunia, said with a balking laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gone mute with the lack of use.” He leaned around Noctis’s shoulder to peer at him. Noctis didn’t stop staring into space, slowly blinking and not reacting.

The red headed devil ghosted out of the room, pausing beside 20-year-old Ignis briefly to smile at him and say, “Hopefully he’ll let us know in the near future, hm, steward?”

Noctis scrunched his nose up, regardless of the way it moved his skin and cracked hardening face paint. Ignis, whose gold and white was far more elegant and lively, and spoke of his ties to Tenebrae, simply closed the door and went over to the eighteen year old prince. “Noct, are you alright?”

True to form, Noctis said nothing, and simply nodded.

He was a broken young man, and having watched his father get slaughtered eight years ago in front of him as the Empire blasted through the Wall and overtook the Crown City, he stopped speaking that very day. It actually wasn’t the trauma of Regis’s death that stopped him. It was when Emperor Aldercapt arrived and demanded he swear fealty to the Empire. To him.

The punishment he received for refusing in silent defiance was evidenced in scars stretched over his body as he grew up, and were joined by more and more as time went on. They were scars he didn’t allow anyone, not even Ignis, to see. He was kept alive for the front reason of ‘good faith’ to the people of Lucis. On the back end, he was kept alive to serve as a challenge to anyone who wanted to try to stand up for the Chosen King.

He was a princess waiting in his tower for someone to rescue him, with assassins hiding behind every window and door, waiting to slaughter anyone who tried.

Thus, his silence wasn’t pain, but outright defiance for their overlords. He was sure if he spoke, if he played the game, he could have had anything he wanted. All _they_ wanted was the Chosen King as their pet. If he acted accordingly, maybe he wouldn’t have spent so many hours deprived of sleep, of food, hanging, burning, bleeding his way through his childhood and teen years.

In fact, just the way he’d recently started just… going with the flow instead of making them drag him proved how he could have lived. He didn’t regret a damn thing, however. The only reason he started to cooperate was because Ignis and Gladio had come too close one time to finding him where he’d been dumped when the Emperor grew enraged with him.

They couldn’t protect him from the Empire, and he didn’t want them living with a guilt over something they in no way could help. So, rather than risk them finally discovering what he’d been through for all those years, he relented enough that the Niffs could get him to do as he was told. He just wasn’t happy about it, and would never speak a word.

“Perhaps we should go, then,” Ignis said, his voice hesitant as he watched Noctis carefully.

There were times that it seemed like Ignis knew more than he let on.

That was poetic, in an ironic sort of way, Noctis thought on more than one occasion.

He nodded to Ignis again and went to stand, staring into space with hollow eyes that didn’t focus on anything around him. The thousand yard stare was definitely something to behold.

The third day of the Festival of Etro was no different than the first two damn days. All it was was people outside lamenting the loss of Regis and being allowed in small, quiet groups. No one was happy with what happened, but with the invasion, so did everything that made Lucis strong cease.

The Crownsguard were all assassinated.

The Kingsglaive was sent into slavery as frontline cannon fodder for wars fought with the last standing outposts against the Empire. Stripped of their king, and their prince not strong enough to power their abilities, they were easily destroyed within months.

Gladiolus only survived because of his age, and because he was charming. He had the enemy convinced of his loyalty not long after the execution of his father. It was a false loyalty, built on resting revenge, waiting for a time that wouldn’t come. Noctis was waiting for the day he was sent to death for attempting to assassinate Aldercapt because he couldn’t take it any longer.

Noctis’s training stopped when the fall of Insomnia happened, as did Ignis’s. They were stuck with the most basic of education, and no entertainment.

He felt bad for his silence even in private moments, but he didn’t trust there not to be bugs everywhere they went. He interacted with Ignis the best he could.

The dinner party that was held, something done simply to pacify the people, was disgusting. Everything about it was vile, from the enslaved men who had to serve those who were in attendance—noble men, men of the former court who weren’t slaughtered—to the ‘purchased’ women of the same former stature, who sat with men of the Empire. While women of the Empire were in attendance, there didn’t seem to be any who particularly cared for the plights of those women.

Noctis cared, though. He knew Gladio and Ignis did, too. If he could have ripped out the throats of every man in that room that contributed to the destruction of the men and women in that room, he would have.

Foods cooked with the spices of Accordo filled the massive table that occupied the space where a smaller table once sat, used by Regis and Noctis when they could have dinner together, and it was a representation of the grandeur with which Niflheim existed, on the backs of the world as a whole.

“Welcome, all of you!” called out the chancellor as he entered the dining all, his face dripping with paint in such a sickly way that it almost looked like black blood was oozing from his eyes, his nose, mouth and pores. “It’s so nice to see that our fair Prince Noctis has come, as well!”

Noctis didn’t react beyond watching Ardyn walk to his seat by the emperor. He wasn’t a prince. They used that title to mock him. Where they stripped Lunafreya and Ravus Nox Fleuret of their titles entirely, they let him hold onto his, like gifting a child left in a closet a book, but no light in order to read it. The hell good was it, being a prince, when there was no power to it?

“Truly, he is a beacon of light to all those who have lazed here in the boundary of Insomnia, behind the Wall,” Ardyn continued. “Powered by his father, all were kept safe from daemons of all sorts! I daresay, even the gods themselves were incapable to pass through. Only a godless society, when reigned over by such savage ones as the Astrals, could blossom into such a fantastic land. Look at the people of Solheim! Turning from the gods led to a grand empire! But not even they had a shield such as the one that once held strong above the glorious Crown City.”

He smiled broadly and turned to hold a hand out towards Noctis in an awful, symbolic gesture. “Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum! Your body is needed!”

Noctis’s eyes went wide, and he shot up from his seat in a gesture that might’ve looked like he was going to yell at the bastard. However, his sworn silence held firm, and he instead shoved away from the table, going to leave. He’d run and make them shoot him dead before he allowed them to do anything to him.

That was his thought process, even as he started to feel the sensation of being stabbed, right through his sternum, and radiating through his chest. He locked his teeth and pressed a hand against his chest, doing his best not to show his discomfort. His pace was slowing though, as it felt like his body was losing all its stamina, all its energy. What was happening…?

By the time he reached the massive doors that lead into the halls of the Citadel, his knees were shaky and they gave out on him hard, sending all his weight down and into his kneecaps as they collided with the marble floor. It felt like he had a fever. The world was spinning.

“What is the meaning of this?!” he heard Ignis bellow behind him.

“We need to protect Gralea and Insomnia,” Ardyn said lightly. “We’ve worked tirelessly to fuse magitek with the Crystal, so it will be easy for our sweet prince to fuel Walls for both.”

“Do you honestly think the people of Insomnia—”

A gunshot rang out behind Noctis, and he turned as quickly as he could. To his horror, that shot had been directed right into Ignis’s head. Several people to his right were leaping from their seats as parts of his body, his skull and his brain, sprayed over them.

And then, the shooter: A young man Noctis had taken notice to before, because he remember him from school. A young man of whom he didn’t know the name of, and had never shared more than space as they passed one another in the hall. He was a browbeaten boy, with a collar Ignis stated was to control their most adored pets with. Where the blond came from, and how Noctis didn’t see him before, he didn’t understand. All he knew was that the boy, with a blend of colors belonging to Niflheim and Lucis both on his face, had his gun to the back of Gladiolus’s head, and the larger of his two best friends was being threatened to stay in his seat.

Or so it seemed. Noctis didn’t hear anything as he tried to crawl for Ignis, scrambling as pain spread from his sternum, his ribcage, and began to flow through his arms.

He just managed to make it but a foot off from his fallen friend when a scream escaped him, loud and piercing, the shock of the Crystal overcharging into his body too much to bear. He screamed, the sound like tight air pressure to his eardrums, and balled together with his head against the floor, in the blood that pooled around Ignis.

“So, the boy does still have his voice,” Ardyn laughed as he paced around and to Noctis’s side.

Noctis flinched as Ardyn tilted his head when he reached his side, smiling devilishly down at him. It was then that Ardyn said something that had the prince swearing he’d find a way to kill him, even if it took him ten years to get there:

“I’ve always wanted a choir boy to sing me to my ascension.”


	4. Collapse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why IS Prompto so good at this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: Day Four of #hurtnoctweek: Blood loss, and closing a wound while awake and with no pain killers.
> 
> Remember that these stories are more like… snapshots. If anyone has any interest in seeing more, or something being elaborated upon, feel free to ask! Or, if filling in the blanks oneself is preferable, that works for me, too.
> 
> Also, I have a cat screaming at me for about 50% of this because he’s mad that I won’t go inside and be with him RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, so have that in your head when reading this. You’re welcome.

And, of course, the day Noctis Lucis Caelum hated the most out of the seven day Festival of Etro would end up awful.

It was like Wednesday. Halfway through, and yet not far enough through to be excited.

It was the last day of body painting, the next starting with masks, and no one did anything interesting. It used to be a day of gift giving and spending time with close friends, but over the years, it changed to elaborate body painting and bragging to strangers. Because of it losing its personal touch, it took only took a couple of decades before it turned into the most violent of the seven days as people got drunk and declared it the day of airing grievances.

Never mind that that belonged to the sixth day, but one could likely safely assume that because the city police and the Crownsguard were prepared for a violent time on the sixth day, it wasn’t as ‘cathartic’. They were getting better at mobilizing on the Hump Day of the Festival, but Noctis would have happily funded a special Day Four task force.

In fact, he would be doing exactly that after that year. It started as a harmless day of allowing Prompto Argentum to experience the full royal treatment to prepare for the day, with him getting ghostly grey and white wisps and frosts covering him across his face, down his neck, and his arms, along with the tailoring that came with day four so that the effort of that painting could be seen by all. “I look like a gigantic spider web, Noct!” Prompto cackled.

“You do,” Noctis mused. Once again, he himself was adorned in the crest of his family, the regal, skeletal design spiraling down his neck, across his shoulders, and down his arms.

It had been a real fight on his side of things. Unlike Prompto, who was used to wearing vests and tank tops, Noctis preferred… sleeves and… more fabric. The negotiation was a t-shirt, not unlike the prince fatigues he knew were being made for him. In two months, they’d be leaving Insomnia for Altissia, so he could get married to Lady Lunafreya per the request of Niflheim. A fact that he swore he’d die acting like he wasn’t looking forward to it, even though he was.

It was a hilarious train of thought in hindsight.

“And—by hilarious—I mean—really fucking ironic,” he found himself panting much later in the day.

It was amazing what a few, well-placed explosives in a shopping center could do.

The attack wasn’t based around the fact that Noctis was there, shopping for day five with Prompto. Like the first four days, the last three were based on increasingly ornate masks and more elaborate festivities. Noctis vastly preferred those days, because it was about the present and the future (aside from day six, which was about emptying emotional pain to proceed on for a peaceful future and eventual rejoining with Etro). So, they had gone to that super complex of a mall to get full-face domino masks that they could decorate themselves like the nerds they were, only to have the entire foundation of the mall fall apart around them in a deafening series of explosions.

In a desperate attempt to keep Prompto, and those around them in the immediate area, safe, Noctis acted fast. As the glass walls of every store shattered, and the skylights above them cracked and started to descend, Noctis flitted about, warping people under and around places that seemed to be holding up even as they descended downward. Part of the mall hadn’t been caving under the collapsing foundation, so there were safe spots.

It was only a matter of time before that caught up to him, though, in the form of a large shard from the skylights striking him in the arm in the most miraculously once-in-a-lifetime way where it dragged through his flesh from shoulder to wrist before slamming into the abyss below as he was in mid-warp.

He and Prompto both tried desperately to heal the injury with potions, but the damn things didn’t do anything but cool off some of the sharper pains. Even that was shortlived, though, because they didn’t have many. Noctis only stashed a few because he and Prompto tended to do stupid things and get banged up, but otherwise never needed them.

As he laid there, on a fragile piece of flooring that hadn’t yet fallen, but was swaying dangerously, he regretted not listening to Ignis about stocking up. He was bleeding so badly, and it was all he could do to lay on his arm to both apply pressure to it, and to avoid a couple of kids cowering nearby from seeing how bad it was. His warping had made it instantly obvious as to who he was, and they were legitimately terrified of the blood pooling under his body.

Prompto had gotten moving once it was obvious the potions weren’t going to help. First, he ripped off his belt to tighten it around Noctis’s shoulder, and then he took to trying to call for help on his phone.

“Don’t—bother,” Noctis panted as he shakily wiped face paint out of his eyes. “They can’t… they can’t get to us until… the building’s kind of stable.” The floor they and the three children were on was like an island in the middle of a sea of fire at that point. Dust and smoke billowed up from down below, and long bars of debris surrounded them.

“Noct, this is _bad_ , dude,” Prompto rambled, watching him with glassy eyes. He was always so emotional.

“I know,” Noctis replied, closing his eyes.

Not being able to just accept what was happening, Prompto squirmed in place, before holding his hands out and focusing hard on them. Noctis furrowed his brow, and asked, “…the hell’re you doing?”

“Ignis has been storing like—medical supplies and sewing supplies…”

Normally, Noctis would have understood what Prompto was talking about. However, in that moment, he had absolutely no idea. He didn’t until, after a lot of effort and a lot of mental digging through the storage that was Noctis’s armiger, Prompto managed to produce a box of sewing materials that Ignis had stashed away for their trip.

“No—” Noctis blurted.

“No choice,” Prompto rambled as he started to dig through the box, looking for the right kind of thread and the right kind of needle.

“What do you—even know about this sort of thing?!” The prince didn’t even realize he was starting to slur his words at that point.

“Don’t worry about that,” Prompto replied. It did little to make Noctis obey, particularly when the needle he chose was a carpet needle, long and hooked and…

Noctis honestly blacked out for a moment when he realized Prompto planned to use that thing on him. He wasn’t one to be afraid of needles, but he’d never had one like _that_ used on him before. And what he perceived as ‘a moment’ had been long enough for him to come to with a pained scream, finding Prompto had rolled him onto his back to get access to his gashed apart arm, and starting to dig through his skin with the needle. It was attached to a black thread that felt like fire dragging through his already traumatized flesh when Prompto cleared both sides of the injury with the needle and started to pull it through.

“I know, I know,” his friend rambled with a grimace. “I’m sorry.”

The pain was so bad that Noctis found he couldn’t even string a single word together to try to get Prompto to stop.

It was just as Prompto reached the middle of his upper arm that a distraction came to him, most mercifully. A small hand took his other hand that was slapping blindly at the ground, and he looked up to see that the oldest of the three children—a girl no older than ten, if he had to guess—had come to sit beside him. She was clearly trying to comfort him.

“You’re Prince Noctis,” she said, though it was with a slightly questioning lilt. Her brown, slanted eyes looked at him with worry.

He nodded slowly, unable to respond verbally for the moment. His arm felt ready to start spasming out on him as Prompto continued to lace his skin together with an impressive speed. He could feel the work being done involving backing up slightly to criss-cross over itself, which only seemed to drag out the agony.

“Thank you for saving us,” she said, leaning over him some. It was as if she was trying to distract him from what Prompto was doing, but was implicitly knowing that it had to be done.

“Y-Yeah,” he stammered out, taking a quick set of breaths in before releasing them.

“I-It helps if you think about other things,” she advised. When he looked confused, she scooted a little closer. “I used to be really sick, a-and the stuff the doctors had to do hurt a lot, but… if you think about something happy, it’ll help.”

That was a lot sadder than Noctis could appreciate at that moment in time. He felt nauseated and dizzy, hot and cold. Every time Prompto hit a nerve, it took everything he had to cinch up his stomach muscles, and not the tiny hand holding his.

Trying to make sure the tears pooling in his eyes didn’t break free—royalty didn’t cry in front of their people—he panted out, “What—What’s your name, h-honey?” Prompto was at his elbow. Halfway there. Maybe focusing on the wellbeing of the little girl would be the best way.

“Sari,” she replied. She pointed to the two other, younger kids. “That’s my brother, Vivi, and my sister Nari. They’re twins.”

Oh, so he’d saved a family.

“How… how old?”

“I’m ten. They’re six.”

“Wh-Where’s… the… people wh-who t-take care of you, Sari?” They were a cute trio. They looked like him, with black hair and slanted eyes, a dominant trait of native Insomnians. His family had descended from the fairer complexions that were less common, but still native, but his own mother had looked like that. He never complained. As Insomnia became a melting pot of refugees, having a future king that took on the physical traits of two different races was good. It meant that people who fled places like the Lucis wilds, or Accordo, or Tenebrae felt as comfortable as those who fled from places like Galahd.

Sari frowned a little and looked at their joined hands. She shook her head, which was enough.

“When… When… the Crownsguard… get here… when th-they get to us, I’ll… make ‘em look,” Noctis promised as he watched her. “J-Just… be strong f-for Vivi and Nari. G-Got it?”

She nodded, and gently squeezed his hand. It took everything he had to turn his hand enough to gently rub the top of hers with his thumb. His body was locked tight, from agony and the fight to keep from flailing away from Prompto, or accidentally hurting her, so willing even that much movement felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done.

“Y-You know… about the… King’s S-Shield?” he asked.

“Almost there, buddy,” Prompto whispered, trying to keep the shakiness out of his voice, but failing.

“Mmhm, we just learned about them in school,” Sari replied, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She was clearly a ball of stress in her own right, which made it even sweeter that she was being so kind to him.

“Mine… h-he’s a big… a big brother,” Noctis said as he blinked rapidly in an attempt to absorb the water in his eyes. “His… n-name’s Gladiolus. H-Her name is I-Iris.”

“Like the flowers?”

“Yeah.” That actually prompted a ghost of a smile. “H-He’d tell… tell you that proudly, too.” Dizziness was overpowering nausea suddenly, and cold overpowering hot. He knew what that meant from his own past experience with injuries. “Anyway… he does everything… for her. Being—Being a big brother or big sister, th-that’s one… of the most important things you can be.” Saying so much, the slurring was becoming incredibly obvious then, but he was still easily understood. “So… when… Prompto’s d-done here, you go… back to them. And you l-leave figuring out… where your parents are to me and… the Crownsguard.” Though he felt ready to pass out, his body finally done fighting. Despite the levels of hell Prompto’s stitch-job was putting him through, it was clear his work was going to be the key to keeping Noctis from completely bleeding out, and his body recognized that. He looked to Prompto. “You… get that, Prompto?”

“Yeah, buddy, loud and clear,” Prompto replied, frowning but still never relenting in his work.

“’kay.” Noctis rolled his gaze back to Sari. “We’ll… we’ll find ‘em, better or worse.”

“Thank you, Prince N-Noctis,” Sari whispered, touched and bowing down to their joined hands. “They always say you’re so nice.”

“Aw, m’not nice, d-don’t let ‘em fool you,” he breathed. “’m a big ol’ brat.” That prompted a giggle out of Sari.

Prompto spent a lot of time at the end of the incredibly long gash, making sure to end off the stitch-work in a way that it wouldn’t start undoing itself. It hurt even worse, somehow, but Noctis had lost the energy to even try to express that.

Once he cut it off with a small pair of scissors from Ignis’s box, he leaned over Noctis to look at him in worry. “You still with us, Noct?”

“…still w-wanna know how you know… how to do that,” was the answer he received.

He laughed a bit quietly and shook his head. “Another time, maybe. But you need to try not to bend your arm. I used kinda stiff thread to make sure it’ll hold shut. The doctors will use something better though. Okay?”

“That’s… not gonna… b-be a problem,” Noctis said as a way of agreement. “I need sleep.”

Prompto looked stricken, but he didn’t speak up, against that plan. There was no point, and Noctis knew that Prompto knew that. When Noctis was tired, he could sleep on top of a moving train if it was necessary.

“S’okay, Prom,” the prince murmured. His eyelids were so heavy. Clearly, his body recognized that Prompto had just saved its life, and so it was crashing, and crashing hard. As he started to descend into darkness, he murmured one last thing, as the final bit of energy had. “…let’s not do this ‘gain, ‘ey, Prompto?”


	5. Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is beginning to feel like Groundhog's Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In one of the alleged Versus XIII leaks, it stated that it was entertained that one of the characters that would later die for Regis in XV was actually going to be a turncoat. Let’s try to unite that idea with the characterizations of everyone else as seen in XV.
> 
> Anyway, this is Day 5: "A council member tries to kill Regis a la Julius Caesar in front of Noctis, who jumps in front of his dad." Not exactly that, but you know!

Day five of the Festival of Etro was the start of what Noctis wished was the entire thing.

He didn’t wish for the holiday to be shortened. _Hell_ no. Seven days free from school and work? It was the holiday everyone needed and deserved.

But day five! Day five and six and seven, those were the best days.

On day five, gone was the makeup and paint, and in was the evolution of masks. That year, it was decided that the King and the Prince would start with eye masks that were custom made that year, instead of the pearlescent full masks lacking any other true decorations that they had worn in prior years. The masks were black and fitted with satin, embroidered in gold. They had gloves and ascots to match, and Noctis was actually enjoying the hell out of it. He wasn’t one for fashion—that was Ignis’s job to do that for him—but he looked like some sort of old timey vigilante, and it was awesome.

The gala for that night was one that was hosted with golden lights and black veils draped all around the massive hall, and that color scheme ran true through everything from dinnerware to the napkins.

The day was dedicated to respecting those who lived in the face of Etro Herself, for the sake of life continuing for others. Soldiers, bodyguards, police officers, anyone who was willing to throw their lives on the line to protect others. It had also become somewhat synonymous to Noctis among those in the Citadel, following his near death experience when he was eight. The irony there was that day seven had also become so, though among the people of Insomnia. Day five was supposed to be the day Regis, or any other ascended king, was honored alongside the protectors, since it was known that their harnessing the Crystal to benefit others was a sentence for an early demise.

Gladiolus had tried to bring a downer on the whole affair pretty early in the evening. “I hate these days,” he grumbled in opposition to Noctis as they walked through the Citadel together, for the dining hall.

“Why?” Noctis asked as he messed with his badass gloves.

“Masks make people brave, and it’s a nightmare keeping people safe,” the twenty year old explained, quiet. “No one wears their family crests during these days, so it’s not like we can identify a problem that way if the problem is able to get away.”

That reasoning made it suddenly make sense why Gladio had been so insistent, earlier in the day, that his full-face mask have touches of the Amicitia family crest painted into it. Still, though, that was awfully paranoid for him to be going on about.

“You’re acting like you’re not going to find the first girl you find and run off to a closet with her,” Noctis said flatly.

“Excuse you, I never take a lady that wants to spend time with me to a _closet_.” He paused, and then amended, “Unless she asks to go to one.”

“How in the hell are you not dying from like fifteen different diseases?”

“I’ll tell you all my secrets once your balls drop.”

Noctis stared at him with a flat expression at that, but left it alone as they passed through the wide open doors to the gala’s hall.

They parted ways shortly after entry, so that Noctis could stand with his father and Gladio could go about being paranoid in peace.

The night was great, and no one would hear Noctis saying otherwise. There was a certain security during the final three days of the Festival of Etro that gave Noctis the confidence to actually get out there and socialize. Sure, everyone in attendance there knew who he was, but that wasn’t the point. He felt like the mask was a shield and he used that shield to the best of his personal comfort to actually make his father think that maybe he wasn’t completely socially broken.

“Having a good Fifth Night?” Regis asked when Noctis sauntered over to him in the hour following dinner.

Noctis chuckled, because that tone was so knowing and typical of his father. “Yeah, I mean, Fifth Night’s always good. Prefer it over the rest.”

“I would think Seventh Night would suit you best,” his father mused.

“Man, at least I’m not on the news tonight.”

“The people love their prince, and were as traumatized by the near loss of you. It’s only natural to thank Etro that She didn’t claim you too soon.”

“Yeah, they just want the Chosen King stuff,” Noctis retorted blandly.

“Hardly. Every heir to become King, man or woman, has been adored by the people.”

Noctis snorted, but didn’t respond as a couple of his court approached Regis in order to speak with him. Such interruptions were perfectly normal, so Noctis didn’t look put off, instead looking around to see if he could find Ignis. Ignis had forgone the full face mask as Noctis and Regis had, but was wearing a hood as a substitute (something Noctis had plans to do on day six, since it was impossible on day seven with the way they would be dressed up then). As he searched, he noticed a large man heading their way. While his mask hid who he was, and his clothes of red and silver trim meant nothing there, there was only one person with a stature like that: Clarus Amicitia. While Gladio was larger, Noctis knew where he was, because he could see him passively flirting with some member of the kitchen staff by one of the more minor entries to the hall.

Noctis was ready to greet the incoming Shield, but found himself giving pause as something came to sight that took a few seconds too many to parse. He was pulling a dagger, long and jagged, his eyes focused on Regis’s back. It was a bit of a blur because it was a sight so foreign and unexpected, Noctis just… couldn’t comprehend it right until the man was setting his free hand on Regis’s shoulder. By that point, there was nothing more he could think to do, aside from rushing and trying to slide between the two.

In Noctis’s mind, surely the realization that he wouldn’t hit Regis would be enough to stop him.

He didn’t think for a moment that maybe the man he was assuming had to be Clarus wasn’t going to be able to stop himself.

It wasn’t even really a second between Noctis’s intervention and contact with the blade occurred, the motion swift and going upward, intended for the taller Regis.

Had it gone to plan, the blade would have entered the king’s solar plexus and gone up, through his esophagus.

In the case of Noctis, however, it hit his sternum and shot up, grinding against the bone, before sinking into his throat, between his collar bones, and into his mouth.

The realization in the eyes of the attacker was obvious, his stare shell-shocked as he could do nothing but watch as Noctis grasped at his wrist helplessly.

There wasn’t much Noctis could do. Gravity was taking over, and the only reason he was standing was because of the blade still clutched tight in his father’s would-be-assassin’s hand.

Time slowed.

People grabbed at him, grabbed at the assassin, pulled them apart. Noctis swore he felt the blade go through the roof of his mouth and into his nasal cavities, but that made no sense. It probably collapsed his throat, sliced his tongue, pierced back into his brain stem, and the shock of such grievous injuries was lighting up every nerve in his body.

While he was eased to the floor, into Regis’s arms, who was trying to hold the dagger in place as he screamed for someone to get Citadel medics, Noctis watched Clarus Amicitia’s unmasking by the hands of his son. The prince watched his friend’s face twist in devastated betrayal, and how he absolutely lost it when Clarus’s mouth made the words, “I didn’t mean for it to be him.”

“What do you mean you ‘didn’t mean for it to be him’?!” Gladio’s voice thundered against his failing comprehension.

Whatever the response was, Noctis didn’t get a chance to try to see, as Regis started to rock him back and forth delicately. Ignis was soon sweeping in to the two of them, to try to help as Regis used a delicate and low blizzard spell to cool down and almost freeze the injuries caused by the attempt.

As chaos reigned over the dining hall, with Cor and Gladio leading the situation with Clarus, and Ignis taking command of how to help Noctis, time slowed all the more, until it felt as though he was watching things unfold from an outsider’s perspective. Hot blood was seeping from his nose, confirming some sort of rupture in or around the nasal cavities, and he could just see it from above his body, and the way Regis was begging and praying quietly against the top of his head.

“So it seems the world will await another thousand years,” a familiar voice spoke from over his shoulder. It should have dawned on him that what he was experiencing was indeed an out-of-body event, but in that moment, he just didn’t see it that way.

He turned to where he found Gentiana standing, her eyes closed and one hand draped down to pet at the head of Umbra. “What do you mean?”

“Twice has the King of Kings come, and twice has he gone, lost to the tidal waves of misfortune,” she replied.

Noctis looked down again as medics arrived, attempting to do what they could to pack the wounds as his body started to dance the dance of death. It was a dance he had witnessed in his nanny when she took most the blow meant for him when the Empire tried to kill him as a child. Laying atop him, her wounds bleeding into his, her body spasmed and quaked as it took in its final breaths. It was one of many reasons that night left him anxious, prone to quiet panic attacks, and wracked with night terrors even to that very day.

Even as those around his body tried everything, from science to potions to magic, nothing was ceasing his clock from stopping.

His eyes began to bleed, likely a rupture caused from the uncontrollable shaking and twitching while the blade had still been in his body, left to prevent more damage and bleeding before the medical team could arrive.

“Why?” was all he asked.

“Because the world’s plague wants not to know its end, and will infect and use any it can to cease the one born to escort it there.”

“So, Clarus…?”

“Infected. Affected. But this was not his intention. His etchings in time were dedicated to dethrone the Father of the King of Kings in the name of the Empire. The one who usurps peace wanted a boy drawn into madness, not death. This is why he interjected after the time the boy prince nearly met this end.”

The spasms were ceasing then, and not because of the medical care being received.

“…what now?” he asked without looking away from the scene.

Gentiana left Umbra’s side, in order to tenderly hook her fingers around Noctis’s chin and guide him to look at her instead. “Now, you must let go and start the long walk to the Deathkeeper’s gate. Your mother and all those you have spent years in this holiday mourning for in the wake of your first time walking this line await you there. In time, those you value with breath still in their bodies will join you.”

“But… my dad, my friends, Luna—”

“Your sacrifice will not be in vain,” she promised gently. “At the gate, so too a gift awaits. A gift that will allow you to speak with the Lady Oracle freely, and allow her to serve as your voice.”

“But… I thought there’s only the Astrals she can do that with,” Noctis questioned, not aware of the emergency CPR happening to his body then.

“It’s time to let go, and to allow yourself to find your answers at the Deathkeeper’s gate, sweet prince of fate.”


	6. Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bad thing happens to Noctis's drink, which turns into a bad thing happening to Noct, which turns into Noct doing a bad thing for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have waffled over this one. I’m not terribly good at writing the subjects the main prompts contain. I realize it’s also technically a free day, but if nothing else, this is a challenge, and so I should FULLY EMBRACE THE CHALLENGE.
> 
> So.
> 
> This is going to be interesting.
> 
> As with prior stories not in this challenge, I have no problem dragging IRL things into it because there are so many IRL things in the canon already (like GOOD OL’ CUP NOODLES), so yeah.
> 
> Prompt for the late Day Six challenge is: Roofied/poisoned at a Citadel part, and pretty much what you’d expect to follow. I tried to be light on certain descriptors, but I’m still raising this to Explicit.
> 
> Also, trigger/content warnings: Aforementioned roofieing and consequent actions that happen as a result of drugging someone’s drink, and a helllllll of a lot of self-victim blaming, along with a very unhealthy resolution. Do not do these things. Do not self-victim blame or reach the conclusion that is reached here. Trust me, it doesn’t pay off.

The sixth day of the Festival of Etro was kind of nuts.

It was the day that one purged oneself of grievances in order to move on with one’s life and, in the spirit of the holiday, achieve peace at death.

What that translated to was one of the most chaotic days of the year. Street fights, domestics… It was like The Purge, but everything was still illegal, so there was far less homicide. And since it was the actual day that was intended for such behaviors, the city police and Kingsglaive were utilized in tandem, with off-duty Crownsguard being allowed overtime to help if necessary.

Although Noctis rarely used the day for which it was intended, it gave him the prime opportunity to enjoy rubber necking, particularly at that night’s gala at the Citadel. It was the only night he stayed the whole way through, as the drunker the court got, the more hilarious it became, because everything turned so damn petty.

To date, his favorite exchange was between a lady member of the court and his father. Two years back, she had decided that he needed to hear about how she hated his beard, and missed when he actually bothered ‘taking care of himself’, as though not every man in the court—aside from Clarus Amicitia and Cor Leonis—had some form of facial hair. It was the first time in a long time that Noctis found himself laughing out loud in front of more than Gladio, Ignis and Prompto.

It was a little after midnight when things started to get hilarious that evening. While Gladiolus was giving Prompto tips on how to pick up women—a lesson Prompto was failing, what with it being his first time visiting the Citadel and ending up incredibly nervous—Ignis was fussing around, cleaning up where the kitchen staff was failing. No matter how much he accused them of failing due to laziness, it was clear that they couldn’t get around the clumsy court and the clumsy court’s equally clumsy families.

The nineteen-year-old prince offered to help a couple of times, but after the second dismissal, he just took to sitting and being amused. As with the fifth day, the sixth day was his time. Away from eye masks or relatively bland full face masks, everyone wore full face masks and high collars. The masks were actually designed with eating in mind, and could have the area of the mouth and chin removed from soft latches so that it was possible. The sixth day was also a gluttonous day, as the seventh day was about fasting, with masks that couldn’t be taken apart and, per tradition, couldn’t be removed. It was the cleansing after six days of festivities. Needless to say, most the people at that party were missing that lower piece in favor of eating and drinking.

Noctis wasn’t, though. The mirrored-black mask, designed in layers of paint to make it appear that the black shine was cracking away to brilliant, golden flows underneath remained in place. Anything he drank, he required a straw, which he would snake up from the bottom, to his mouth. Between the elegant mask and the black suit he wore, with golden accents, a silk, golden high collar and matching gloves, his entire appearance lacked any color beyond black and gold, aside from his stark blue eyes. Even for his hair, which he had styled up in a style Ignis insisted should be his ‘driving appearance’ should he ever leave the city, to keep his hair out of his eyes, was done so with feather-light gel that had gold in its otherwise clear coloring. It left his hair with a gold shimmer that had Prompto taking endless pictures before he got derailed by the prospect of a girl’s attention.

As he sat and watched, he barely paid mind as his drink was renewed by waitstaff. Iris Amicitia was, at present, lecturing her father about how his over-protectiveness about her learning to fight was frustrating, and it was pretty funny. He blindly shifted his straw to the new glass and snaked it into his mask while watching the ironic confrontation. Gladio had been inviting her to their training sessions at Noctis’s behest lately, so she _was_ getting training. Maybe not the most intensive training, but that was because she was small and young, and new. Had she been training for as long as Noctis had, he would’ve pushed Gladio to do more with her. As it was, just getting her used to knives was a journey.

A journey not because she wasn’t gifted, because she was an Amicitia. Of course she was talented. She just was, again, green. It’d take time.

That was a subject that came up when she finished with her father and approached Noctis. Not used to someone outside of Gladio deciding to tell him off that day, he was surprised, but just kept drinking his drink as she leaned in over the table to level her eyes on his. In her gunmetal grey mask, patterned like the feathers of the Shield’s sigil, but in a pink that matched her collar, gloves and accents in her dress, tights and shoes, she looked like an angry kindergartener on her birthday.

“And _you_ ,” she stated.

“Go on,” Noctis invited from around his straw, adding another layer of muffling alongside his mask.

“Make Gladdy teach me more often,” she demanded.

“I’d be pretty surprised if he teaches you nearly as often as he does now after that sass to your dad,” the prince retorted, his grin not evident in his tone or his eyes.

“Why?” she asked, instantly worried.

“You nearly tattled and said he’s teaching you when he’s not supposed to be. Gladio told you to be careful about that.”

“I didn’t!”

“The fact that you even brought it up tonight is pretty suspect,” Noctis pointed out. Iris looked worried, and Noctis sighed around his straw. That sigh brought about a vague bit of dizziness. What was that about? “Tell you what,” he caved. “You promise not to pull that shit again, and I’ll train you on my days off from working with Gladio. Ignis’ll find out, and so will Prompto, but they’ll be quiet so long as you are and you do everything I say.”

Iris tilted her head as Noctis spoke to her, and when he was done, she asked, “Have _you_ been drinking?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, while she plucked his glass out from his hands, leaving his straw hanging out of his mask. There wasn’t much space between it and his face, after all.

She sniffed the drink and looked puzzled. “You’re slurring a little?”

“I am?”

“Yeah. Are you tired?”

“…I think.”

“You think.”

Noctis stared at Iris, before nodding slowly and going to stand. He was ready to walk out when Iris stopped him. “Hang on—” She plucked the straw still freely hanging out of his mask and held it up to him in silence explanation.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“…thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, Noct…”

He felt her eyes on him as he loped for the exit, otherwise left to his own devices. Just as well, because he was cranky when he was sleepy.

As he walked through the hallways, he started to realize that he’d been walking for way longer than he should have been to try to find the elevators. That was beyond frustrating. Everything was swimming, and he felt sick, and he soon found himself falling onto a bench in one of the darker corridors for that time of the night. Was he coming down with the flu? Being a relatively healthy young man, whenever he did get sick, it was hard to figure out how and with what.

“Hey there, are you alright?” a man’s voice asked, deep and drilling into his head like an icepick.

Noctis opened his mouth to speak, but found that the only sound he could produce was some sort of slurring under his breath.

A mask came into view. Did he recognize that mask? He didn’t think so. It was hard to keep his eyes open. He was honestly surprised that he hadn’t yet thrown up in his own mask. Something felt really wrong.

The man took his arm to start helping him up, and Noctis tried to object, but nothing came out as he dipped into darkness.

What seemed to be mere seconds, was anything but. He regained consciousness once, finding himself being held over a toilet bowl, his mask over his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you with your teeth,” that same man’s voice from before said. That wasn’t a voice Noctis recognized. Despite how flaky he pretended to be, he was impeccably good with voices and faces. He didn’t recognize that voice. Who was that?

Darkness overtook him again, the time period yet again unknown. Whatever it was, it was enough for him to wake to the taste of some sort of mouthwash in his mouth, and him laying in a bed that didn’t feel or smell like his. His mask was back over his face, and the man from before was still wearing his, and was working on pulling Noctis’s clothing off his body. The prince tried to fight back, but his limbs felt like weak rubber, and he couldn’t lift them.

His chest hurt.

“You’re having quite the unexpected reaction,” the man’s deceptively calm and soothing voice said.

‘Unexpected reaction to what?’ Noctis tried to demand, over the sound of his heart racing as though he’d run twenty miles.

But again, he couldn’t make his body do anything he wanted, and darkness took over him once more.

He wished to Etro that it would’ve stayed that way.

Noctis was about one step away from being completely asexual. As far as anyone ever was concerned, he _was_ asexual. He had his dreams about Luna, usually brought on when he saw her on TV or on the internet, but he’d never done anything with anyone or himself, and he was pretty content and confident in that fact. Call it his laziness, or call it disinterest, or even call it ego, as though no one was good enough for the Prince Regent of Lucis aside from the Oracle, because it was all the same and none of it was accurate.

That didn’t mean he didn’t understand sex. That was what made his next bout of consciousness so terrifying.

Aside from his mask, the strange man had stripped the prince of everything he was wearing, and was between his legs, seated on his own knees, and watching Noctis through his mask. It was black… solid black, with no definition and no design. It was a common mask for someone who didn’t want to pledge their existence in any direction other than Etro Herself.

He wore a hood to mask his hair. The only thing he had forgot to cover were his eyes, which were so brown, they might as well have been black. Noctis did everything he could to try to store away every single, fine detail. It was hard to do, staring through a fog as he was, but he was trying. Maybe he’d be lucky enough that the guy would forget—

“Don’t worry, fair prince,” the man said, as though reading Noctis’s mind. Dressed as he was, he was exposed just out of view of Noctis, and leaned up and into the young man’s body, pressing the tip of his member against tight muscles. “I won’t let you get messy,” he advised, Noctis closing his eyes as he felt rubber move on skin.

God. Damn. It.

Although his mind was sluggish and he felt so _sick_ , Noctis was trying to think of ways to handle what was happening. He couldn’t fight back, but what about DNA? Evidence? Hair fibers, and—

Blinding pain seeped through every joint, every tendon, every bone as the masked bastard pushed through his body. It felt as though he’d slammed a sword into him, the pain sharp and dull and hard and unrelenting. The nausea returned with a vengeance as he swore his body was tearing open.

It was that searing pain, which even reached his already agonizing heartbeat, that acted as a cruel lullaby as he started to fade out again. He didn’t want to, because if he was unconscious, he couldn’t study the man; he couldn’t try to regain control of his body. He’d be completely and totally out of control.

The next few times the world began to come back into view, it ranged from seeing his own body being thrust up through the motions of the man’s hips, of his relentless pace, to finding he’d been dragged to the bathroom and suspended over the bath tub’s wall, the man still enjoying himself with a pace that wasn’t kind.

Noctis had apparently started to get sick again, he learned as his blurry vision focused on the bathtub. He started to understand that, whatever he had taken in earlier in his drink, he was having a profoundly bad reaction to it. That explained the disorientation, the vomiting, the chest pains.

Wait, they had studied that in school.

People _died_ after being drugged like that, if they had a poor reaction to the drugs.

He didn’t feel like he was dying, but he also knew his scale for understanding death was a hell of a lot different than most.

The asshole probably knew just how to keep him from choking on his own stomach contents in order to not have to bail or sober him up to keep him breathing.

That was what Noctis assumed, and as his eyes rolled back, he hoped he was right. He didn’t want to die that way. In fact, if there was nothing there in terms of evidence, he didn’t even want to speak of it.

——

The next time the prince came to, he found himself laying out in the hall again, fully clothed and still feeling as if he was going to have a heart attack, and as though his insides had been ripped apart. That bastard knew what he was doing.

Even his hair was wet, indicating he was likely bathed before being laid out there, which meant he knew how to dispose of evidence. Without more than an eye color that was ridiculously common in Insomnia, what else did he have? Who would believe the Prince of Lucis was some fucking weak as to allow himself to be drugged and raped by a guy he didn’t even try to fight? Because that would exactly be the train of thought. It’d be one thing if a quiet investigation could draw up evidence and make the man disappear, but there would have to be a massive investigation that would inevitably get out.

‘Clearly, he’s just regretting it,’ he could imagine some people saying.

‘He’s to marry a woman to carry on the bloodline of the Lucii, so it’d be a shame on his father to admit even experimenting,’ he also imagined was a conversation.

Noctis didn’t care if someone was gay, or straight, or bisexual. He didn’t care about their orientation, their identity or race. Others wouldn’t be the same with him, nor would they listen if he said he was in love with a woman. It shouldn’t have mattered either way, but it did, because he was who he was.

So, as he laid there, waiting for his resting heartbeat to level out in its return, and for his insides to stop feeling as though he was filled with acid, he made the choice not to speak of it ever. Not ever.

If someone found him laying there, they were welcome to think he was drunk. He’d sleep in his clothes from the party that night, and when he got back to his apartment, he’d burn whatever was inevitably covered in blood to prevent Ignis from discovering it when doing his laundry, and it would be a secret with which he would die tightly sealed away.

And he sure as hell was no longer drinking or eating anything without Gladio, Ignis or Prompto with him ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might do Day Seven. If I do, I'm taking the 'free day' to the max after all this!
> 
> EDIT TO ADD HERE: The third day is a subject that someone asked that they would like to see more of, with the super AU, so I will start working on that in the near future as its own story!


End file.
